Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Queen Victoria Really Did Stop at the Manor House Tavern
As I've written elsewhere, the previous incarnation of the Manor House Tavern used to bear a plaque on its southern face that boasted of a visit by Queen Victoria.
I've always suspected that this may well have been a piece of early Victorian marketing. However, I've now been able to confirm from no lesser a source than the Queens' own journal that she did indeed stop at Manor House.
The visit took place on 25th October 1843 when she and Prince Albert were travelling by carriage from Windsor to Cambridge. The route included the still relatively new Seven Sisters Road and a stop was made at the Manor House Tavern for the first change of horses.
I don't imagine for a moment that she dashed into the pub and ordered a pint, but it's good to know that there's at least some truth to the claim.
I've updated the Manor House Wikipedia article along with supporting references.
N.B. James Toomer, whose name was written above the Queen Victoria sign, owned and ran the pub from 1851 to 1870. Toomer added function rooms to the pub including a banqueting hall and ballroom. Soon after he bought the pub he took out licences for both music and dancing and the pub became a regular venue for events of both sorts.
Tags for Forum Posts: manor house tavern
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by JoeW on
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I wonder why Queen is spelt Qveene?
A journalist for the Sydney Morning Herald asked the same qvestion in 1865:
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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As far as I'm aware in Latin the letter v was vsed to represent both u and v. It wasn't vncommon for inscriptions of posterity to follow this ancient pattern. I'm not svre whether it was considered pretentiovs in the mid-nineteenth centvry or just proper. I note that the sign-writer also added 'Ye' before the date in another ancientesqve flovrish.
Growing up I remember the well loved BBC series 'I Clavdivs'.
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For some reason I thovght it was to do with the relative difficvlty of carving or engraving a U shape in masonry compared with a V.
But then the plaqve shovld say Manor Hovse?
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Yes l've read of specvlation that this is what lay behind using v for u back in Roman times, but I covldn't comment on the veracity of svch a claim. I wonder if they could make letters like B S and O why U should be so challenging.
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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Similar to " Ye Olde Tea Shoppe " - pretentious attempt to make something look older than it is ?
But, as Hugh says, it seems that U and V were pretty much interchangeable ( as were I and J - Iulius Caesar ). It probably comes from attempts to recreate the ancient Roman pronunciation: in some schools pupils were taught to pronounce V as an English " W " sound. Thus "Veni, vidi, vici " was rendered as " Weeni, weedi weeki " which was always good for a laugh. So " Qveen " would be considered to give a correct representation of the " w " sound
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Permalink Reply by dubmill on
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I don't imagine for a moment that she dashed into the pub and ordered a pint, but it's good to know that there's at least some truth to the claim.
Maybe it's completely true. Saying only that she 'halted' there (as opposed to 'visited') suggests that the coach stopped and she remained inside it while the horses were changed. It's funny to think of her travelling this way in 1843, in the manner of a medieval monarch. The year before, she travelled for the first time by train, on the Great Western Railway, from Slough to Paddington. (I remember reading that she is said to have admired the view from the Wharncliffe Viaduct in Hanwell, which she would have crossed as part of that first journey.)
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You’re right. The claim is completely true in a literal sense. However, the implication of the inscription is that the Queen patronised the tavern which is unlikely to be true. It’s the space between these two ‘truths’ to which my comment was referring.
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It could be that some form of refreshment was brought out to her and her party, to be consumed on board the coach. Mind you, I'm not entirely sure that changing the horses was typically performed while people were still sitting inside the coach.
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I wonder if the claim pushes the truth as far as possible, that the Queen halted at the tavern. The 1952 book I cite as a secondary source in the Wikipedia article claims that the Queen stopped for refreshment. I’ve followed up other claims made by the author and they’ve turned out to have no basis in fact. Given that there’s no source for the claim, I’ve assumed that this ‘fact’ was an historical flight of fancy and I have repeated only what I found in the Queen’s own journal.
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Yes, it makes sense not to push it beyond what's stated in the journal. On the other hand, you would think that she might have been in need of a little refreshment at that point. (Does the journal state where and when the previous stop was for horses to be changed? Or was one team able to handle the entire distance from Windsor to Manor House? Perhaps so: it is about 25 miles.) Perhaps the plan would have been to hold off and travel on a little further before stopping for a meal at somewhere more suitable. Or maybe a meal could wait until Cambridge itself. Another question occurs to me: how on earth did they deal with the matter of toilet stops on such journeys?
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As I said in the original post, the stop at Manor House was, according to the Queen, for the first change of horses. Here's the paragraph. It's hard to read too much into it!
We changed horses 1st at Manor House, next, at Waltham Cross, having passed through Tottenham, Edmonton & Enfield Wash. To the right, as one leaves Waltham Cross, stands one of those beautiful old Crosses, which were erected, wherever the body of Queen Eleanor (wife of Edward 1st) rested, but we passed by too quickly, to see it well. 3rdly we changed horses at Ware, having passed through Warenley, Broxbourne & Hadelisdon; 4thly at Buntingford (where we got out) after passing through Ward's Mill, Collier's End and Puckeridge; 5thly at Melbourne, passing before through Buckland, Reed Hill & Royston.
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